Could someone explain to me why Kierkegaard is not considered as making an argument for fanaticism when he advocates the teleological suspension of the ethical? He admits that Abraham was unethical in his act, but how is he truly a worthy example? I can understand the leap of faith as a starting point, but justifying anything more than that with it leads to relativism (as Zizek puts it, "If God exists everything is permitted"). Or maybe that was Kierkegaard's point? I've only read Fear and Trembling so maybe I missed his point.
>>8122303
He's not saying be like or don't be like Abraham. Just that when it comes to teleologically suspending the ethical, nobody will understand you maan
What Kierkegaard is doing is trying to reconcile faith with the idea that modernism is true.
Premise A: God is absolute
Premise B: Moral good is relative
Conclusion: God must sometimes conflict with morality.
It could be used to justify fanaticism, but Kierkegaard is talking about Christianity, which kind of forbids killing people. In fact, the suspension here would more likely be your society expects you to kill someone, and it would make moral sense, but you choose not to because of religion.
>>8122303
Yes he was, we must be fanatic in our faith or else we have nothing.
I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.
- Apocalypse of St. John 3:15-16
>>8122313
>which kind of forbids killing people
Kind of in the sense of not really.
>>8122317
What's the deal with St. as a title in certain early translations anyway?
>>8122313
hi Constantine
>>8122334
If I read the early Protestant Bibles I see odd titles. So like St Mark rather than Mark. I don't know which version uses Apocalypse of St John rather than just Revelation actually.
It's a convention that I've been meaning to look into the history of.
The point is that we can never know what Abraham was thinking, e.g. tragic hero.
If you read it again, you will notice that he neither affirms nor dis-affirms the Abrahamic 'test of faith'.
>>8122313
>but Kierkegaard is talking about Christianity, which kind of forbids killing people
>kind of
It's done a terrible job.
>>8122342
At Getsemane? Yes of course he was reprimanded, the apostles knew what were to happen yet still acted to prevent the divine plan, much like with Abraham, the divine supersedes Peter's worldly want to save his master's life.
>>8122347
Tolstoy is a very good writer, I think you are misunderstand what lacking spiritual depth means in writing, it has to do with what you're looking for, and some people don't care about it at all. For instance, Nabokov is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all times, but he has zero spiritual depth, in fact he has nothing but contempt for it. Consequently, I do not treasure Nabokov--I enjoy reading him, but I do not treasure him, yet I treasure Dostoevsky, whom Nabokov had nothing but loathing for, specifically because Dostoevsky had spiritual value; on the other hand, Nabokov tended to have high regard for Tolstoy, except in regard to works in which Tolstoy employs more philosophical themes.
I say Tolstoy lacks spiritual depth, because even where he is philosophical, his philosophy is not profound, it is nothing more than a reflection of a strain of the spirit if his age. He brings no serious reflections to the table that require you to think about for hours. Dostoevsky, on the other hand, had an extremely distinct philosophy, and most of his post-prison works contain as much depth as a fully philosophical work.
>>8122342
>Christ reprimands Peter for trying to defend him. All killing goes against Christianity.
Christianity =! Christ necessarily. The Christian churches have at various times condoned mass killings. I mean the fucking crusades man.
Further to that Christ does say he came not to bring peace but a sword and if you want to include non canonical gospels we have him killing people like something out of a horror movie.
>>8122356
> whatever you do DO NOT eat the fruit from this tree
And God NEVER LEARNED
>>8122356
According to Kierkegaard, the vast majority of Christians are not really authentic about their faith. He hates all communal expressions of faith in Christianity for this. He sees faith as something completely personal, which is turned into mere culture when it is expressed socially. That is why he so vehemently opposed a state church
>>8122357
Christ did not reprimand him by saying, "Thou of little faith." He warned him against living by the sword. It wasn't that Peter tried to save Christ, it's how he did it. Trying to save Christ would not be innately wrong anymore than Judas betraying him would be right because it fit into the plan.
>>8122376
Yeah, well, I'm Orthodox, and to this day soldiers who come back from war have to do repent of the blood on their hands.
Christ says he came to bring a sword, but by this he meant he came to set people at odds with their families and communities, and maybe his coming brings a sword against those who follow him (see Mark's gloss on this).
Non-canonical Gospels are rejected specifically because they lie about Christ, they were written long after the canonical Gospels.
>>8122386
To live by the sword is meant as in a sense to make a living of it, i.e. imperialism or mercenary work. There is nothing wrong with justified killing.
>>8122396
What, Peter wasn't trying to make a living out of it, he was just defending Christ.
>>8122398
This is what is meant by the proverb. One who makes his living by killing will die violently.
Also, the proverb doesn't actually make a moral statement either if we're being honest, it only states that violent people have violent lives, but does not pass a value judgement on violence itself.
>>8122404
The actual verse doesn't even use the word "live", that's just a paraphrase, so I don't see why you're emphasizing this point so much.
"A human being is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation that relates itself to itself or is the relation's relating itself to itself in the relation; the self is not the relation but is the relation's relating itself to itself. A human being is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short, a synthesis. A synthesis is a relation between two. Considered in this way a human being is still not a self.... In the relation between two, the relation is the third as a negative unity, and the two relate to the relation and in the relation to the relation; thus under the qualification of the psychical the relation between the psychical and the physical is a relation. If, however, the relation relates itself to itself, this relation is the positive third, and this is the self."
~Kierkegaard
>>8122390
>they were written long after the canonical Gospels
Look up Gospel of Thomas and the Q source.
Some of the others date to similar times as John (eg Gospel of the Lord and Thomas again), early 2nd C.
>>8122415
>the Q source
The Q theory holds that the synoptic Gospels cover a great deal of the same material, and therefore had a common source. First of all, it is actually a mark in their *favor* that they cover the same material, insofar as reliability goes, but here it is used against them; however, I will dispute the hypothesis based on this: the Gospels phrase many things differently, and it is altogether more plausible that they are just different people telling the same story, as opposed Sto one source being incorporated into three. Is there any good reason to believe the alternative to the Q Theory, the account by Papias? Yes, there is; first of all, the Four Gospels stand up to what they purport to be. The Gospel of John stands up to being by John, since it has personal details, most particularly Christ entrusting John with his mother; the alternative to believing this happened, would be to suggest the Gospel is not written by John, but by someone simply lying and claiming his name. One piece of evidence used to support this is John giving a different date for the Crucifixion, but in fact John doesn't: Leviticus 23:5 says Passover starts on the 14th day of the first month, which is the day the Passover Lamb is killed--Jewish time reckoning (as well as Orthodox Liturgical reckoning) gives the evening as the *start* of a day, meaning the Mystical Supper takes place on the fist day of Passover, and so does the Crucifixion, with Christ being entombed right before the end of the day. To cement the Gospels, however, the best source is the Gospel of Luke: it is written by the same author as Acts (in fact they were probably originally one work), who participated in Acts judging by the use of first-person plural later into the work. Now, why should we believe this author is who he indicates he is? Well, if the author were a fraud, why would attribute the work to Luke?
cont
>>8122420
He'd attribute it to someone who had a great deal of authority, yet he didn't. Secondly, the Gospel being Luke's coincides with its more detailed account that would come from women: Matthew and John are firsthand accounts, besides that they include what the disciples would have heard from those they knew, with the Gospel of Mark being entirely based on Mark's conversations with the Apostles about what they saw first-hand. Luke, on the other hand, would have to be an assembling of accounts, Luke goes and talks to different people about different things and weaves his Gospel out of them. So taking all this together, the Gospels are at least consistent with being authored by whom they are attributed to. What really puts the nail in coffin of the Q theory, is that it requires Mark to be the earliest Gospel other than Q, and to be the other common source used by Matthew and Luke, which is wrong: when Christ says it is not when goes in which defiles, but that which comes out, Mark 7:19 has the gloss explaining in saying this, Christ made all foods clean, something that was only universally accepted after the Council of Jerusalem; Matthew has no such gloss, indicating that it is the earliest Gospel, and predates the Council of Jerusalem.
cont
>>8122405
I know the original text says something akin to "to draw", but this also implies preemption and aggression, thus rendering the violence unjust.
>>8122425
If Matthew were written after the Council of Jerusalem, and was using Mark as a source for this saying, surely it would have included this gloss. There is also another gloss, in Matthew 19:29 says those who leave mothers and brothers and wives and fathers and sisters and houses and fields for Christ's sake will receive a hundred times in the age to come; Mark 10: 29-30 says the same thing, but then adds a parenthetical gloss right after Christ says a hundredfold, saying "now" repeating what Christ just said, explaining "with persecutions", (as in you will lose these things in persecutions, maybe these things might even be doing the persecuting); then the parenthetical gloss ends, and Christ finishes "in age to come". Mark was clearly written after the persecution of Christians became intense, whereas Matthew was written before then. Rather than Matthew and Luke using Mark as a source, is make more sense to say Mark used Matthew and Luke as sources. Finally, Matthew was clearly written in Hebrew and translated (as Papias says), unlike the other Gospels, because it uses Hebrew syntax and tense; for instance, see the very Greek syntax of Mark 15:21: "And they compel passing a Simon [a passing Simon] of Cyrene, coming from country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, that [he might] carry the cross of his [Christ's]." This sort of syntax sounds natural in Greek (where inflection and declension almost completely determine grammatical relations), but in English or Aramaic, languages that rely heavily on syntax to express grammatical relations, it's chore to parse (and remember there was no punctuation, lowercase and uppercase, or even word spaces, in ancient times); Matthew 27:32, by contrast, reflects a Aramaic or Hebrew syntax: "Going forth and they found a man of Cyrene, named Simon: him they compelled to carry the cross of his [Christ's]." Here is another example, Mark 1:12: "And immediately the spirit him drives into the wilderness." Compare the Aramaic Matthew 4:1: "Then he, Jesus, was led into wilderness by the spirit." In Mark, the indirect object is adjacent to the object, which is quite normal in Greek, but generally not feasible in Aramaic or Hebrew.
A lot more information on this pastebin if you're interested: http://pastebin.com/bN1ujq2x
>>8122426
It's not implying anything unjust, it's a term used for taking up the sword in general. Christ is telling Peter, don't take up your sword.
>>8122415
Gospel of Thomas hardly contains anything horrific done by Christ in it, and is lacking several themes common to all the other Gospels, such as forgiveness.
>>8122430
I've heard this schlock before and it currently plays into the "Christianity is really just Judaism light, Jesus was really criticising the Romans :^)".
Bear in mind that for example the Council of Jerusalem didn't pull the gentile convert rules out of its arse, they were clarifying issues that were being questioned. You'd also be really pushing for any of the other Gospels being written before then anyway.
>>8122472
I'd be pushing because most secular scholarship has the Destruction of the Temple as the cut-off period of the earliest time any of the Gospels could have been written. The reason for this, is because Christ predict's the Temple's destruction.
So yes, from a secular standpoint, an earlier date is pushing it, but from a Christian standpoint, not at all.
>>8122472
>Bear in mind that for example the Council of Jerusalem didn't pull the gentile convert rules out of its arse, they were clarifying issues that were being questioned.
This is also true, but the point is that Mark added the gloss in response to the issue became contentious. Matthew did not have to deal with that when he wrote his Gospel, the issue was not contentious. If Matthew copied from Mark, then the gloss would have been copied as well, whereas it is much more plausible that the gloss is a clarification long after the saying was known, added to clear up contention.
>>8122313
>What Kierkegaard is doing is trying to reconcile faith with the idea that modernism is true.
>Premise A: God is absolute
>Premise B: Moral good is relative
>Conclusion: God must sometimes conflict with morality.
Nope, Kierkegaard was (over-)reacting to Hegelianism. It was more like this.
Premise A: Ethical good is objective and universal Reason.
Premise B: But objective and universal Reason leaves no place for subjective and individual Faith.
Conclusion: subjective and individual Faith must sometimes conflict with object and universal Reason (and this movement against Reason is the "absurd").
Kierkegaard was reacting to Hegel's pantheism which reduces the individual soul to nothing but a slave without any free-will. Kierkegaard's existentialism/absurdism was his exaggerated attempt to affirm the freedom of the individual in the face of the universal Reason.
Despite his complaints about the Lutheran church, Kierkegaard ends up being just a disciple of Luther who thinks that Faith is subjective, a matter of individual conscience.
Catholic faith runs a middle ground; it is has both an objective and subjective part. Protestant faith is totally subjective in that you make it up yourself and then believe in the creation of your own mind; Catholic faith is objective in that it is an objective doctrine external to your mind, but subjective in that it requires the submission of your mind to this objective doctrine.
Kierkegaard's philosophy is awful, but is just the awful reaction to the even more awful philosophy of Hegel. Not everything Kierkegaard wrote was wrong though, he said a lot of interesting and good things.
>>8122408
Kierkegaard is wrong here. The soul is primarily a substance, not a relation. The self does not cease to exist when it stops relating itself to itself (self-awareness, self-consciousness). This is the foundation for his subjectivist philosophy which makes the mind its own creation.
>>8122497
I don't think Kierkegaard ever posited ethics as innately derived from reason any more than he did with aesthetics, but the conflict with Hegel you're speaking of is right, I just think that has to do with the rational specifically rather than the ethical as what is rational.
>>8122503
Aristotle says that substance is the primary category of being, whereas relation is merely one of the "accidents" that inheres in being. If the soul is a relation then it has no substantial existence; it would be impossible to argue for the immortality of the soul if it is just a relation.
>>8122506
>I don't think Kierkegaard ever posited ethics as innately derived from reason
He did. He was quite Platonist in ethics.
>>8122510
>He did. He was quite Platonist in ethics.
Eh? I've only read Either/Or and Fear and Trembling, but I didn't see his ethics are remotely Platonic
>>8122313
The the Christian god isn't omnibeneveloent? Because if what your saying is true it would be senseless to say hat he is.
>>8122497
Why was Hegel bad?
>>8122536
He was a pantheist who thought that the world and all history was determined by a World-Soul. He believed that the World-Soul is evolving throughout history: first if you have pre-intellectual material world, then the intellectual world with the individual consciousness of man; the individual consciousnesses of men cause intellectual conflicts which play out throughout history, and these conflicts result in the syntheses of ideas, until the end-of-history where all intellectual conflicts will be settled, and all the individual consciousnesses of men will be formed into the one supreme fully evolved World-Soul. The problem with this for Christians is that it makes you a victim of the Zeitgeist, the Time-Spirit, you believe what you believe because that's what the World-Soul has determined people of your time will believe. So Christianity is not an eternally valid truth, but a mere historical hypothesis that will one day be subsumed into a higher synthesis. The individual has no eternal validity, he will be subsumed into the collective consciousness of the World-Soul.
>>8122481
Eh go on. I've known people religious people taking theology and the argument usually boils down to "these guys didn't know they had to record anything because the world was ending imminently". I can see how there could be an uneasy compromise between groups of scholars tho.
>>8122485
I can think of ways that make good sense as to why there'd be no gloss. Matthew may have decided it wasn't as relevant any more. If we take Mark as being written earlier the gloss may have been in response to the conversion of the first gentile (who apparently ate unclean meat and I'm sure I read something about his circumcision status being questioned (because he may have been super circumcised)) and/or as a response to the "I'm going to reverse my circumcision and exercise naked" Hellenistic Jews that also did unjewish things and we're prominent in early Christianity. Matthew may have just not seen it as an issue any more. Or not agreed.
>>8122548
>Eh go on.
I simply say, the Gospels were written before the Temple's Destruction, my basis being Christ actually did predict it. If one accepts that possibility (obviously generally ruled out because it is miraculous), the late dating is not necessary. I do not personally subscribe to it, except for the Gospel of John, because according to Church tradition John was only a boy when Christ made him an Apostle, and he didn't write his Gospel until old age.
> Matthew may have decided it wasn't as relevant any more
It's not just that gloss, all of Mark's glosses are absent in Matthew.
>>8122545
How is that bad though?
>>8122568
Basically a perversion of Heraclitus to fit historical progress and the Enlightenment conception of logos.
>>8122583
Did he mean that there was a literal world spirit though?
>>8122303
Abraham loved Isaac. Isaac was not only his best (recall the sermon described by Johannes the Silentio) but also his only son given to him on the power of the absurd by God. This already highlights the special position of Abraham and his relation to God.
The movement in question happens when the universal (i.e. the relation between father and son, not just killing in itself) is suspended and the individual (Abraham) is placed outside of it in an absolute relation to the absolute (God).
Thanks to this special relation to God, Abraham "believed that God would not demand Isaac of him". After all, he was promised to be the father of a prosperous offspring. He had continuously renewed faith in God, because that would make true the promise, ergo he had faith that Isaac would be returned to him.
Johannes wonders if "Abraham has acquired proprietary rights to the title of great man, so that whatever he does is great, and if anyone else does the same it is a sin, a crying sin? If so, I have no wish to take part in such mindless praise."
Johannes obviously continuous to praise Abraham, though not mindlessly. Question is whether Johannes believes Abraham, though not inherently 'great', is a special case because of his (proven) relation to the absolute? I think he does.
If it is true that Johannes believes this, it remains the question whether Kierkegaard himself believed such a teleological suspension of the ethical possible for anyone but Abraham, or if it served primarily as a rejection of Hegelian ethics and concept of faith?
What about the fact that what was to be sacrificed was given to Abraham by God? Surely, this goes against the 'argument for fanaticism'.
>>8122313
>Kierkegaard is reacting to modernism
tripfags are amazing
>>8122356
It's almost like it was formally adopted in violent times...hmm...
Almost as if the easiest aspects of a religion are the ones that spread
No, that can't be it. Your edgelord imbecilities must be true.
>>8122993
So basically Abraham seems like he is in a very specific situation. Not that there's anything wrong with that since this situation represented the beginning of a religion, but should we then assume that God gave us everything and therefore it is ok for him to take it away, but we have faith in his promise that he won't? I'm not sure what to do with this even if it isn't just reading too much into it.
"Isaac" means laughter. Often strict religious practices, asceticism, enjoin complete abstinence from bodily pleasures and a concern with the suffering of humanity, excessive gravity; which is to say, the abolishment of laughter. Abraham being told to sacrifice Isaac, laughter, represents the path of the soul towards religious enlightenment: if it is willing to go to the depths of depression and despair, it, through paradox, enlightenment, will ultimately be allowed to keep laughter, to realize the importance of it even more than ever before.
>>8124689
This bait reminds me of the time I feel for someone saying that Nietzsche wasn't an atheist.
>>8124580
Nietzsche proclaimed we should aspire to "golden laughter" (a play on "Silence is golden")
Really makes you think, huh?
>>8124698
explain how it is bait. it's correct.
>>8125128
If this isn't bait then I feel sorry for you. Seriously just look it up. He wrote it with an alias, but he wrote it nonetheless.
>>8122598
Yes, he certainly did.
>>8125227
His pseudonyms are characters bruv
>>8122420
>it is actually a mark in their *favor* that they cover the same material, insofar as reliability goes
no, it is not
>they're saying more or less the same thing, so it must be reliable!!
don't care if we're talking about the gospels here
>>8124580
>this shit makes more sense than anything else itt
>>8122303
The example of Abraham is a an allegory on how the suspension of the Ethical is the only form of "individualism" in Kierkegaard's philosophy. Kierkegaard understands theology as negative and positive, meaning that God is beyond human reason, beyond good and evil (that's why in the Sickness unto Death explains that ontological arguments of God are actually veiled atheism) ethics are part of human history as a determination of behaviour based in logical reason, however the conception of God in Kierkegaard is based in indeterminated intuition and ascetic life. To be with God is to feel, not to to think.
>>8125632
You'read advocating special pleading.
>>8122303
>if god exists everything is permitted
zizek really said that? that's brilliant. that's what theists say of atheism isn't it?
>>8122313
The fault I find in your explanation is that Kierkegaard is not talking about institutional christianity, futhermore he viewed christianity of his time as an extension of Hegel's philosophy. Even Church as a institution is coersive to Kierkegaard, its ritualistic forms of repetition do not let Men to be conscious of their anguish.
>>8124580
Not quite to the point, but a very interesting post.
>>8125673
It's not brilliant, really.
>>8125768
hmph, well i said it is, and i'm all that matters, so it is indeed brilliant.
>not ridding one's self of spooks like anon here
>>8125501
Because pretty much none of the philosophers who came after him had that impression, they thought he was using it metaphorically. Are you sure he is a legit pantheist?
>>8124699
It does actually. Laughter, the comic, irony and humour were very important for Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. Deleuze says that this is because these go against generality and law and towards a more authentic repetition... or something like that.
>>8127762
Kierkegaard never struck me as much of a laugher, or a comedian.
Whereas Nietzsche, for example, gave the impression of being constantly giddy and on the verge of bursting out with laughter in the likes of Beyond Good and Evil.
>>8126274
How low does your IQ have to be to find these idiocies "brilliant"?
>>>>8126274
Must... complete... quadrant....
> if God exists everything is prohibited
-Anon who's pretty sure Zizek also said this
>>8127804
They're interesting.
>idiocies
So what camp are you from? Red pill or analytic?
